


The Price of Salt; or, Follow your confusion, it’ll lead you somewhere in the end.

by emef



Category: Die Hard (Movies), Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Anne of Green Gables references, Art History, Backstory, Character Development, M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Pining, is it blood loss or is it love?, mixtapes, title from a Patricia Highsmith novel, way fluffier than the title might imply
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 15:28:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4105897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emef/pseuds/emef
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>In the morning, he wakes up from a dream in which McClane is standing next to him with his arm hovering just over the small of Matt’s back.</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>  <em>That’s it. That’s the whole dream.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Price of Salt; or, Follow your confusion, it’ll lead you somewhere in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic happened because of [this Polyamorous Recs post](http://polyrecsdaily.tumblr.com/post/114734642599/coming-home-die-hard). Basically what happened was, I saw this rec, read the fic despite never having seen the movie, _then_ watched the movie, and had my tinhat welded on by minute 11 or so. Then I wrote this. So thanks, Polyamorous Recs!

The Price of Salt  
or, Follow your confusion, it will lead you somewhere in the end.

Part 1

When he first saw Matthew Farrell, he’d been annoyed about being sent to pick the kid up. Feds throwing their weight around, like they could just snap their fingers and have NYPD detectives fetch their perps for them? It was embarrassing. But the kid’s angry-cat defence of what was clearly his doll collection distracted John, and there was something about the mix of bravado and sarcasm the kid was projecting. It was compelling. He was gonna have to spend two hours driving this guy to Washington? John wasn’t exactly _happy_ about it, but he wasn’t annoyed anymore, either.

When the bullets started flying, he threw himself on top of the kid, he didn't even think, he just did it. And he kept on doing things and not thinking about them for a couple days. A _couple of days_. What kind of nutbar did Gabriel have to be to set up a multi-day takeover plan? Staying awake that long never leads to any good. Full marks for the ninja girlfriend though.

There was a moment - in the middle of the night between Thursday and Friday - when the had kid could’ve stayed in Jersey, with that other hackboy, but he hadn’t. John had turned around and seen him get into the car, looked at the kid’s face, and that had been good. Because, he’d thought, Matt had been resourceful. Helpful, even. Well - helpful when he wasn’t being a sarcastic jackass. John liked to think he worked well alone, but the fact was that he’d always had someone by his side during his Real Bad Days, even if it was only over a handheld radio. So he’d thought, maybe it wasn’t a bad thing to have the kid around.

Mostly he didn't think, though. He just drove cars into helicopters and shot people. And he yelled a lot. And threw himself on top of the kid. Of Matt.

It was when Matt was sitting in the ambulance, all hopped up on morphine and looking like - John didn't know what it was Matt looked like, he just associated that look with, with something real goddamn emotional or some shit. That was the moment when John had thought… He didn't know what. He thought something. He made like he was going to talk to the kid because Lucy made him do it, but that wasn’t the real reason.

Except then Matt was looking at Lucy and asking if she'd said anything about him and suddenly John was getting slammed back into reality. His stomach churned and he wasn’t an idiot. He knew what it meant.

Things got hazy after that. He dimly remembers climbing into his own ambulance.  But he doesn't remember much from the ride other than being wheeled into the hospital. It was kind of nice. John, unlike most people, likes hospitals. It’s the place where the nurses are nice to you and you can sleep a lot. And they give you stuff for your headaches. All you have to do in return is let them treat you like a lab rat a little bit, but John doesn’t mind that so much. So he remembers getting wheeled into the hospital, and thinking, ‘oh good I get to sleep now’ and that was it. Next thing he knew he was hooked up to a bunch of crap that beeped at him, and Holly was there. Her arms were folded in front of her and she was blinking at him like, shit, _if looks could kill_.

“Do you know who I am?” She asks.

“You’re the woman who’s gonna kill me if anything ever happens to either one of our children.”

She doesn’t answer, just purses her lips at him.

“I don’t have brain damage, Holly. S’okay.” The hospital room is bigger than the one they usually give him. There’s a window; Holly stands in front of it and when she leans over John, there’s sunlight illuminating her hair.

“Don’t let anything happen to this one either,” she says, which only makes sense when she walks away, and John sees Matt, in the hospital bed on the other side of the room. He looks really damn peaceful. He has his leg hanging in some kind of torture device, but still. Peaceful.

How is he even there? No way the FBI pulled strings to get them a room together. They’d have to get their shit together to do that.

Warlock might’ve had something to do with it. John’s willing to bet Matt doesn’t have insurance, reckless anti-authority thinks-he’s-smarter-than-everybody hackboy that he is, so he’s probably lost everything now that his apartment’s been blown up. The kid is - what would Connie call it? - _administratively vulnerable_. Warlock damn _better_ be looking out for him.

Matt is like… Shit, _that’s_ who he reminds John of. He’s like John’s first partner, back in ’77. Scrawny and rubbed his face a lot, like Matt. Kind of an idiot, like Matt. Liked questioning John’s maturity levels and arguing with him about the radio, like Matt.

Geoff, his name was. He’d only been a couple of years older than John but he always seemed to _know_ things, like the best places for cannoli and which number bus route ran on what street or avenue, or the name of the girl at reception. He was the one who always knew when people were lying.

They’d only been partners for a year when Geoff had been transferred out. John didn’t know why at the time, and Geoff left without saying goodbye. John was still wet behind the ears then, too terrified to ask questions and too shy to go out looking for his transferred partner.The fact that he hadn't even said goodbye was confusing, but John had thought, maybe that's how they did in the NYPD.

The rumours about Geoff being ‘that way’ came later. But Geoff had taught John to trust his gut, and his gut told him that there was not a goddamn thing wrong with being ‘that way.’ So John didn't think any different of him. He didn't do anything different, as a matter of fact. He just did his goddamn job with his new partner (Steve, decent guy, smelled like cabbage.) And if he sometimes missed having Geoff sitting next to him, giving him advice, well, then he just worked harder at being self-reliant.

 

Part 2

When Matt first saw him, he didn't think anything. He was just distracted. Mostly he was wishing he hadn't answered the knock at the door. It could've worked, Matt’d thought, he could’ve just _not_ answered. It was three o’clock in the morning! Not answering would have been the normal thing to do!

The guy at the door might've left, probably? And anyway worst case scenario he'd've busted the door open and and Matt could just have pretended to have been wearing his huge-ass earphones the whole time. He could even have managed to film the whole thing, it would've been sweet, he could've sent it to Warlock and blown his mind. All it would’ve cost was a stupid door. And probably the NYPD (or his super?) would have ended up paying for the stupid door. Not that he knew it was it was the NYPD when he answered. He thought it was Darren dropping by about the new Kill Zone.

But then McClane started talking and his sarcasm was pretty high quality, for a cop. Not that Matt talks to cops a lot. Maybe cops are taught better rhetoric in New York City? He was going to look it up later. There had to be a forum.

Warlock’s weird reaction to the whole algorithm thing had already sent Matt into a panic. By the time McClane snapped the arm off Spawn, Matt’s psychological reactions were all out of whack. He dimly remembers spending a lot of time whining about being hungry, which seems, in retrospect, like a strange thing to have been focusing on.

But it's like there was absolutely no transition between telling McClane his name was Daisy Duke, and finding himself holding on to McClane's arm, his clothes. Holding his hand. Matt was _holding his fucking hand_ at one point, and hiding behind him and leaning in towards him, while McClane steadied him and they stayed close, close, close.

Later on, Matt wonders, where was the rest of the world while Thomas Gabriel tried to rip America to shreds? His awareness of international military and socio-economic relations is limited but even if some countries were thrilled about what Gabriel was doing (because of American hegemony? Or whatever?), his actions had to be alarming to _some_ foreign governments. Right? Right? And sure, a lot of people must be (still) benefiting from the credit downgrade and higher risk on American bonds and securities but like... A lot of people really *aren't*, right? The World Bank's continuing silence on this matter is incredibly confusing to Matt.

These are things that only occur to him later on, however. In the moment, his brain seemed to accept that he had stumbled into the Big Action Flick universe. In which supervillains are suspiciously attractive and clean-shaven, and have hotass supervillain girlfriends. In which NYPD cops are superheroes who get shot twice without any major blood vessels being hit. In which nobody ever has to go to the bathroom.

He passed out moments after McClane thanked him for saving Lucy’s life. It was a weirdly self-aware moment; time slowed down a bit and he thought ‘oh hey, this is what passing out must be like. Or swooning. Is this swooning? Maybe I should - Oh, a pillow.’ The EMT must’ve been watching for his fall, probably.

By then, he’d been awake for over 48 hours. The end of the world had started in the early hours of Thursday and kept going until Friday afternoon. He hadn’t slept since Wednesday. Surprising he’d made it that far, really. Maybe that was what it was like to fall into the Big Action Flick universe - you don’t need to sleep until the supervillain is dead.

When Matt wakes up, it’s to the sound of his own cry of pain. He can barely breathe for the pain. A shooting, throbbing, horror.

“Kid.”

He’s in a dark room and everything hurts. Everything hurts. And McClane is here. “McClane?!” Have they been captured? Are they in prison?

“Grab the clicker in front of you,” McClane says. “It's a morphine drip.”

A few minutes later, morning light is just starting to come in through the windows and the morphine has kicked in. A pastel uniform is telling Matt that he’s in Johns Hopkins Hospital. And another pastel uniform says he’ll be recovering the use of his leg in time, and that he heavily contributed to saving the world.

“The what?"

“The world. That's what it says on your chart, Mr. Farrell.”

"That's what it says on my _chart_?

The nurse doesn't answer, just checks Matt's vitals.

"I... What day is it?"

McClane speaks up. "It's Sunday. You've been asleep for a couple days."

Something about McClane’s tone of voice makes Matt want to, of all things, start laughing. McClane is just so _calm_. Like this is something that happens _all the time_. 

“This is like…” Matt croaks. “The mother of all morning afters.”

McClane starts laughing, a deep, shaking, belly laugh. It keeps going for a full minute until some machine starts beeping crazily and a nurse runs into the room.

“Yeah.” McClane answers, wiping tears off his cheeks. “Yeah, kid, that’s not a bad way to put it.”

*

Matt’s eating formless hospital goop when FBI people - not Bowman - show up a couple of hours later.

“Boy, you feds don’t waste any time, do you?” McClane says, looking pointedly at the clock, which says it’s eight am. On a Sunday.

“Nurses informed us Matthew Farrell was awake over two hours ago, Detective McClane.”

They sit there for an hour - though Matt passes out before they leave, so it might have been more - asking questions about everything from the make and model of every firearm Matt and McClane came into contact with (McClane rattles them off like he spent the entire ordeal memorizing them) to the colour of Thomas Gabriel’s suit (“would you say it was more of a jet black, or a charcoal black?”). Is this FBI protocol, Matt wonders? He’s a little surprised that the agents are questioning McClane and him together instead of separating them to check that their stories match or whatever the fuck, but maybe this is what it's like to save the world. The FBI gives you a break.

But not _that_ much of a break, as it turns out, because the agents come back to question them again in the afternoon. By the end of the day, Matt's been questioned, had his vitals have checked, randomly fallen asleep, and woken up in pain, in a nightmarish loop of waking/dozing/invasion of personal space. And he’s been informed that he can expect more of the same for at least fourteen days.

McClane, sitting placidly on the other side of the room, looks way better than he has any right to. He's covered in bandages but his skin tone is all pink and healthy. And he looks calm. Collected. Like he just happens to be in the hospital. He even got someone to shave him.

“You okay, kid?”

“Am I _okay_?” Matt shoots back, incredulous. He glances pointedly at his mangled leg.

McClane rolls his eyes. “You got anybody who needs to know you’re here?”

Matt feels paralyzed for a minute, not knowing what to say. That’s a good question, but more importantly, what if he _did_ have people who needed to know he was in the hospital? What would McClane do, call them?

“No.”

“What, nobody?” McClane asks.

Why is McClane pushing? Does he actually want to hear about Matt’s fucking lonely-ass life? Matt doesn’t really want to explain about his parents. Or explain about how he moved to Camden to be with someone, but that someone dumped him. And he definitely doesn’t want to tell McClane that Warlock - who doesn’t need Matt to call him to know where he is - is his closest friend.

“Hey, d’you think that if I press this button, the nurse will get me jello? In the movies, they’re always giving jello to people in the hospital.”

*

Matt’s discharged from the hospital eventually, and he shoves a credit card at Warlock together with a request for a place to stay. “Dude, like, a convalescence sublet. For people with anonymity requirements.”

“Way ahead of you,” Warlock says, and throws him a set of keys.

“The fuck is this?”

“Something you’re just gonna take and then shut up about it.”

Given that Warlock’s made the trip all the way out to Johns Hopkins, Matt doesn’t push the issue. Maybe this is what happens when you get shot. People just start doing things for you.

They wrangle Matt into Warlock’s SUV, drive for about a minute, and then wrangle him out of it. Matt rolls the wheelchair up the driveway - he’s gotten good at wheelchair manoeuvering - and it turns out that the keys are for a fully furnished ground floor apartment with wheelchair access, three blocks from the hospital. “Figured you'd have to go back for physical therapy and whatnot,” Warlock says.

Matt unlocks the door, and takes it all in: the minimal decor, the television, the massive couch, the fully stocked refrigerator… “Thanks, man.”

“And look, I’m no caregiver, so if you need anything and you can’t get it delivered, call…“ Warlock digs through his pockets, pulls out a card. "Call this number." He hands it to Matt. It just says ‘Olga’ and there’s a number. “Recommendation from a private detective friend. She’ll run errands, no problem.”

“I’m not sure I can afford -”

Warlock nods. “That reminds me, an accountant is gonna be calling you. I made some decisions for you while you were out - sorry about that, but you were administratively vulnerable, man - and she’ll get you up to speed. Plus, the US government is gonna be throwing a settlement at you anytime now.”

“What? How do you know -“

“The accountant’s name is Brown. Henrietta Brown. You’re gonna need her. And she’ll be able to recommend an investment advisor, probably a lawyer.”

Matt just stares at him. Warlock opens the front door, walks out into the hallway.

“Anyway, I’m no good at goodbyes and shit so,” Warlock says as the door closes behind him. “Later dude,” Matt hears through the door.

Then he's gone.

Matt takes the maximum allowed dose of valium and goes to investigate the bedroom. He strips and crawls into bed, and fuck, the bedsheets must be like a billion threadcount or some shit, they're amazing, they’re———

*

When he wakes up the clock says it's eight o’clock, it’s dark outside, his goddamn phone is ringing - who the FUCK turned the ringer on - and it's his parents' number. He still recognizes it, even though it’s been years. Years. His _fucking parents_. There aren’t enough painkillers _in the world_.

He screens the call and dials Warlock’s number, but it just rings and rings and fucking rings, and he gives up, finds the number McClane gave him and calls that instead. He isn’t really awake yet, he doesn’t think, he just does it.

McClane answers after two rings. ”Farrell."

"I..." Matt’s head is blank, blank, blank.

"Look, Farrell,” McClane grumbles at him. “They’re still not letting me have my car keys back, so whatever it is, you’re gonna have to find somebody else to -”

“…What?” His head is so fuzzy.

“I’m not That Guy, today, kid.”

Matt’s brain seems to lurch into action. "McClane,” he interrupts, “I’ll have you know, I was just calling to make sure _you_ didn't need _me_ for anything.”

“Right.” McClane draws out the word, like he’s telling Matt that he sees right through that answer, but he’s also saying that it’s fine, he’ll talk for a bit if that’s what Matt needs right now. And it’s nice. McClane’s been kind of a constant through everything that’s happened, and maybe Matt should be sick and tired of the grumpy technology-impaired dude, but he’s not. In fact, he’s kind of happy to hear his voice. It’s weirdly reassuring, just like McClane is. He’s Matt’s sardonic detective-shaped security blanket.

“I’m serious, McClane. And don’t worry, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You’ve got an entire shoulder you can’t use right now, and I’m happy to help. Need anyone to cut up your food for you? Help shaving, perhaps?”

“Farrell…” McClane says it with his threatening voice. This conversation is amazing, it’s hitting every square on the McClane annoyance-as-fondness bingo card.

“I got pretty good at that therapy thing they made us do. Want me to guide you through some mindfulness meditation? Or hey, I’ve got it - I can put together some music suggestions for you! A soundtrack for your recovery.”

 

Part 3

Matt sends him music.

John gets the CDs in the mail. He tries listening to the first one he gets - it’s labelled “Music People Actually Listen To: 1” - but he gives up after three songs. Why don’t people record music with real instruments anymore? This stuff just makes him think about the stores Lucy goes to when he takes her shopping. It doesn’t even sound like music Matt listens to - John could hear it, in the hospital, coming through the kid’s earphones.

After that he doesn’t listen to them. He just lets them pile up, one by one, in a stack near the door. 

John fills up his days, somehow. The NYPD isn’t going to put him back to work for a while, both the kids are with their mother, and John’s learned not to watch television after Real Bad Days. So he goes to the gym a lot. This real nice lady insists on showing him ‘Pilates’ ‘cause she says it won’t hurt his shoulder. She’s a personal trainer, she says, so John gives it a shot. Doing the movements she shows him doesn’t even make him feel like an idiot, ‘cause he’s John Goddamn McClane and he’s supposed to be dead anyway. Anyway, she’s right, the movements don’t hurt his shoulder.

John asks her out because it seems like that’s what he’s supposed to do. She has short, floppy hair and she smiles when he tells her he has two children. They only go on one date.

Sometimes he thinks that everything that’s happened - all his Real Bad Days - should have transformed him, should have made his a different person, but John hasn't really changed since... Ever. The main things you can say about John McClane are still:

(1) When he had a bad feeling about something, he walks right towards it.  
(2) He’s unusually good at ignoring pain, and heals faster than he has any right to.

Beyond that… He still putters about his own life, misses his kids, misses the idea of Holly, wonders about the point of it all for about five minutes before going to sleep at night, then starts all over the next day.

He goes to baseball games. He thinks about volunteering at a cat shelter but doesn’t. He catches up on his window shopping. He wanders up and down Brooklyn, on foot since they’re not giving him back his car keys (‘arm mobility issues’).

The Farrell kid calls every day. They have the same conversations they had in the hospital, except over the phone. Matt tells him about what he ate for lunch, giving the meal a score out of ten, and gives him a detailed update of his healing injuries. John tells him to grow a pair and talks about baseball.

They get called in to talk to some people at the NSA. That’s never happened before, John thinks to himself. But he doesn’t say anything when Matt brings it up over the phone. He just comments, “every agency gotta dot their i’s I guess”. Casual.

They’re out of the building by lunchtime. John takes one look at Matt after the debriefing, struggling to walk with his crutches, and gets them a ride to the closest diner. He’ll feed Matt until the kid stops looking tragic, he tells himself. And then he’ll go home.

There’s a lineup at the restaurant when they get there, but a waiter recognizes them from the news and they get a table right away. The place is one of those restaurants that looks ageless, like it could have been built when Eisenhower was president, or it could have been built a couple of years ago. It could go either way. John’s bet is on the former, he thinks. There’s something about the jukeboxes.

Matt moves awkwardly into his booth, dragging the crutches in with him. John doesn’t help - people don’t like it if you help them when they haven’t asked, and Matt didn’t ask - but he stands next to him, just in case. When Matt’s all settled, his crutches tucked away, John slides into his seat, grabbing a menu, all in one movement.

“What is it about the way you move, anyway?” Matt mutters.

See, this is what’s so great about having this kid around. Everything he says is straight out of left field. John raises an eyebrow at him. “What?”

“There something -“ he hesitates, gesturing at John, waving his hand like he’s a muppet. “There’s something very confident about your movements at all times.”

“Ok.” John nods, wary but fascinated.

“You must have really high kinesthetic intelligence.”

“I'm one of New York's finest. ’Course I'm intelligent."

Matt starts. “I mean, kinesthetic as in physical! No wait, that sounds - I mean.” He rolls his eyes at John. “The PT guy at Johns Hopkins said that sometimes, people who are really good athletes, like, who are flexible and strong and graceful, those people adapt and learn better by - wait. You’re teasing me.”

“You got a point? Or are you just trying to make me feel self-conscious?”

The kid looks down at his menu. 

“Nothing, I just - sometimes I feel like my body isn’t my body? That doesn’t make any sense. I don’t mean body dysmorphia or whatever, I just mean. Like. The part of my identity that’s tied to my physical appearance and how that relates to my body adapting to -“ He glances down at his leg, “adapting to unexpected events. I just. I’m probably overthinking.”

John thinks, maybe the kid is talking about that feeling where part of you is always the person who never had any scars. Like when future Detective John McClane was 20 years old, didn’t have any muscle mass, and had never been shot.

“You’re not overthinking.” John sighs. “It’s not any kind of intelligence. Things just take a while. You just got to to figure out who the guy with the scars is.”

The waitress comes to take their orders then and it’s just as well. John doesn’t like being the guy who says things like he knows what he’s talking about. Matt spends two full minutes toying with the jukebox after they’ve ordered, and John doesn’t say a thing, even when Matt declares all the music options unacceptable. Instead he watches as Matt abandons the jukebox and turns his attention to folding his paper placemat into a crane.

Matt’s hands move confidently, like they’ve done this dozens, maybe hundreds of times. For someone who feels uncomfortable in his own body, he’s not doing so bad. If John had to guess, he’d say Matt was able to do this with his eyes closed. His fingers are agile and smooth, kind of mesmerizing.

He’s probably like that with a computer, John thinks. “What’s happening with that job Bowman offered you?”

“From what I can tell,” Matt finishes the crane and hands it to John. “It’s gonna take so long to get a security clearance, I’ll probably have children by the time they actually offer me a job. My children will probably have children by then.”

“Fed time, huh?”

When they leave the diner, Matt turns and hugs him, casual, touching John’s shoulder to his. He’s warm and smells a bit like mowed lawn, and it makes John want to lean into it. He’s surprised by that, just like he’s surprised by the hug, and he thinks Matt must be able to tell, because he drops his crutches.

They fumble, and John ends up holding the kid upright. And then they’re standing there, but before John can start deciding how to hold him up while simultaneously picking up his crutches, he realizes Matt is clinging to him. And just for a moment, John hugs him back.

 

Part 4

"I got some of those froofy fucking throw pillows for you, man."

"What?"

"Told my ma to buy you some damn throw pillows!"

Matt sets down his beer and turns towards Warlock. What the fuck? “What the fuck?"

"For your knee, man!" Warlock blinks like Matt is fucking slow.

Warlock is way too perceptive for Matt to keep up with him, way too perceptive. Fucker _knows_ things without even asking. He tends to guess what people are thinking about even when he’s just met them. He’d known that Matt was estranged from his parents - not just not speaking to them, _estranged_. And he’d known Matt dated on both sides of the fence. Matt looked up papers about mediums one night - had to hack into goddamn Yale, fucking academic paper paywall shit - and read some research on empathy. Ever since, he’s decided Warlock wasn't that much of a freakshow. Some people are just really damn perceptive, apparently.

But the man is still annoying. "I didn't say anything about my knee!"

"Whatever, man, they're in the bag over there."

Matt heads to Warlock's place in Jersey whenever the rest of their friends’ combination hero worship/mythologizing gets to be too much for him. They’re so… Matt doesn’t know what they want from him, he just knows that they seem to want _something_ , and it freaks him out.

Warlock, meanwhile, has been treating him the exact same way he always has: like shit. And his basement is just the same as it's ever been, which is comforting. The only weird, annoying difference is how solicitous he is about Matt's health. _That_ is  fucking alarming.

"What the fuck is up with that, man?"

"With what?"

"Since when are you, I don't know, nice?"

They tried playing Halo after dinner (lasagna, delivered to the basement by Mrs. Kaludis like Warlock and Matt are twelve-year-olds having a playdate, and you know what, they’re not even embarrassed) but Matt got freaked out the minute he heard a gunshot. So now they’re watching Anne of Green Gables, which Warlock has on VHS.

"Fuck you, Farrell, I am not nice."

"Then what the fuck, man?"

"What are you saying, man? That if I had suffered a major injury and you knew I was sitting here in pain, you'd just let that happen? You saying you wouldn't find that distracting?"

Matt sits back, trying to decide if this is unsettling, or annoying. Or both? Fuck Warlock.

A minute later, he picks up the  bag, and gratefully jams one of the pillows under his knee. Fucking _nice_.

Frederick 'Warlock' Kaludis. Jesus Fucking Christ.

The only thing Matt’s got on Warlock is a good poker face and a high shame threshold.

Matt has _no_ shame. During his one semester in college, his dorm-mates used to send him out to rent tapes of Degrassi Junior High, because he was the only one to put up with the shitty judgmental stare of the rental clerk without flinching. They used to say that most people would find it less shameful to be seen renting porn, than renting Degrassi, but privately Matt always thought they were idiots. And he didn’t give a shit. Stephanie Kaye infatuation waits for no man. Or woman, probably.

Warlock, meanwhile, can’t even say the words “Gillian” and “Anderson” together without turning purple, and he has has _zero_ tolerance for oversharing. It’s like - he _knows_ things, but he doesn’t want to talk about them. At all. Ever.

Matt decides to make up a new game: Make Warlock Spit Out His Drink.

He starts by casually taking off his button-up, revealing the “I know what boys like” t-shirt underneath. It’s an old punk band t-shirt, just the cover of a single album. Red and white checked pattern with the words printed on top - you really have to look pretty closely to properly read the text.

It takes about five minutes for Warlock to look in Matt’s direction and register the words on the t-shirt. “ _Jesus_ , Farrell.”

“Hmm?” Matt murmurs, blinking innocently.

“Dude.”

“Something wrong, man?” Matt says it in his best ‘what, who, me?’ voice. And then he leans back on the couch and stretches his arms out to make the t-shirt design easier to read.

Warlock rolls his eyes at him. “Do not even pretend not to be trolling me with that t-shirt.”

“Don’t worry, Frederik, your virtue is safe with me.” Warlock couldn’t care less about Matt’s sexual orientation, and Matt knows it, but he’s also the kind of guy who thinks that any allusion to sex is oversharing.

“First,” Warlock puts up his index finger. “this isn’t about my virtue and you know it, and second,” he lifts his middle finger. “I do not answer to that name.”

“Whatever.”

GAME SCORE: Warlock 1, Farrell 0.

Warlock kind of jumped a little, but he’s nowhere near dropping his drink. Matt is sucking at his own new game. Ugh.

Matt lets another twenty minutes go by before trying again. “Do you think ‘ideology’ is a bad word?”

Warlock pauses the video. “The fuck?”

“I feel like, in popular use, ‘ideology’ and ‘bias’ are used interchangeably. ‘Bias’ has a pretty clear negative connotation, but… Do you think ‘ideology’ is bad?”

“Sure, I see where you’re going, but why the fuck are you interrupting Josie Pye and Anne Shirley right now?”

“Do you think that the word ‘ideology’ can be used to describe a system, but like, any system?”

“Dude, I’m sitting here trying to watch Canada’s top cultural export, why is your mouth moving.”

Warlock can whine all he wants, Matt knows he’s seen this enough times to basically _recite_ the movie, at this point. “No but sometimes I think - it’s like any socio-economic system, good or bad, is basically an ideology at heart. A socio-economic system functioning through a matrix of values presented as "normal”. I mean. Like western capitalism. Western capitalism has a lot of aspects I want in my life, like property rights.”

“Your mouth is still goddamn moving, Farrell,” Warlock says, not looking away from the screen.

“But ‘capitalism’ is also shorthand for a whole web of values and assumptions about the supposed efficiency of markets, and about individual agency.”

“What the _fuck_ happened to you in the hospital, Farrell? You get attacked by feral sociology students?”

“I’m just saying, ‘western capitalism’ is a couple of words to describe a set of values and principles in which each individual is responsible for their own success or failure. Like, no matter what we tell ourselves, this is what it is in people’s minds. And in that sense, it’s an ideology.” Matt looks straight into Warlock’s eyes as he says it, for full effect. “And ideology… Ideology is like The Matrix. Except you can’t escape.”

Warlock actually jerks forward in his seat. “Do not _even_ throw your second-rate hack analysis of The Matrix at me.”

GAME SCORE: Warlock 2, Farrell 0.

So close! But his drink doesn’t spill. Matt waits until Warlock looks like he is about to take sip from his drink before speaking up again. “Actually, speaking of the occidental capitalist notion of the individual…”

Still mid-gulp, looking murderous, Warlock turns to look into Matt’s direction.

Matt continues: “do you think McClane is cute?”

*

They clean up the drink Warlock’s sprayed all over his couch before Mrs. Kaludis notices anything, and sit down to watch the rest of Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel. Matt promises to shut the fuck up until the end credits roll, and Warlock promises to cut him some slack, on account of his injuries and also saving the world.

Matt knows he’s drunk by the time Anne tells Katherine Brooke that she needs a darn good spanking, when he tips his head to finish his beer and the movement feels a little bit woolly, a little bit amusing. His eyes adjust just a shade too slowly when he looks around himself and things appear fuzzy. Is this what it’s like to need glasses?

Once, when he was still in the hospital, Matt wheeled himself back from physio to find McClane reading the newspaper wearing glasses. Wire-rim reading glasses. It was incongruous because McClane mostly looks like he’s ready, at any given moment, to leap up and take a baseball bat to something, throw himself at a moving vehicle, and then confidently walk over dangerous terrain. Possibly while carrying an injured kitten to safety. The glasses looked too fragile for any of those things.

Matt needs another beer.

“Hey Mr. Solicitous, you wanna grab me another one?”

"Yeah, ok, but this is the last one, Farrell, I'm not letting you sleep over."

"Fine, fine."

When he gets home and finishes handing the wheelchair-accessible taxi service a small fortune in fare and tips, Matt sets up to make another album for McClane. When he started making them, he bought a bunch of pre-paid mailing envelopes, and he still has a couple of them left. He has a feeling that McClane doesn’t listen to them, but Matt’s completist tendencies and commitment to trolling require him to finish them all.

He looks at the track lists of the ones he’s already made, digs out a virgin CD and ponders the top ten lists. He hasn’t done the year 2000 yet. A pre-9/11 album, that might be an interesting angle - a lot of carefree pop music that year.

The thing is, he usually picks the songs out of stuff that plays on the radio, but he’s bored with that now. The idea of McClane listening to ’N Sync is kind of funny, but… Matt cracks open another beer, and takes a look at his own music.

He decides to send McClane a copy of the full Snake River Conspiracy album (“Sonic Jihad”, _such_ an inappropriate title). It’s an overlap of industrial, electronic, pop, and punk Matt listened to _obsessively_ when it came out. McClane’ll probably hate it.

He finds a label and writes McClane’s address on the little CD box and giggles at the thought of McClane's face. He’s still smiling like a goofy weirdo - but too drunk to care - when he wanders out to the mailbox across the street to dump the CD box in there with a pleasant feeling of accomplishment. Forming a plan, and executing the plan. Efficiency, thy name is Matthew Farrell.

When he gets back, Matt considers his giant couch but goes back to his desk, sixth beer of the evening in his hand, and starts listening to the album himself while he skims through new nodes on Everything. He ends up listening to the whole album twice in a row, then a third time. When the album ends for the third time and there's just silence, he gets annoyed at having to click play every time and just sets it to repeat.

His favourite song had always been “How Soon Is Now” (a cover of the The Smiths song and yeah, yeah, fine, some of the music Matt likes is old). But now he’s listening to Lovesong, the only other cover in the album. It’s almost completely unrecognizable from the The Cure song. Just the melody that’s the same.

 _Whenever I'm alone with you_ , the song goes. _You make me feel like I am whole again_.

“I wish I felt like I was whole again,” Matt tells his beer bottle. It doesn’t answer.

In the hospital, Matt had spent a lot of time wishing he could be left alone, up until he’d woken up one morning and couldn’t find McClane. He remembers it really clearly, actually. They’d been sharing a room for nearly two weeks by then. It hadn’t been six o’clock yet and he could see the dew on the trees outside the window. It had been quiet, so quiet, except for the soft beeps coming from the machines beside his bed. McClane’s bed had been empty.

Matt hadn’t liked it. He hadn’t liked it at all. He didn’t want McClane to be gone.

A second later, Matt had heard the toilet flush, and John was hobbling back into the room. John had just been in the washroom. He didn’t notice Matt having a tiny manly panic attack.

_Whenever I'm alone with you  
You make me feel like I am home again_

He switches from ‘repeat album’ to ‘repeat song’ and listens to Lovesong over and over, still sitting at his desk. He wonders if he should get a cat. A cat wouldn’t wear wire-rim glasses and laugh at his jokes, but it would meow at him, and that’s something.

_Whenever I'm alone with you_

It’s around the twelfth time he listens to the song that Matt catches a clue. He sees his media player’s stats and stares at them, unblinking, for a full minute. Twelve listens. Twelve? And he experiences what feels like an elaborate, slow-motion crash, like a cartoon character being hit by a massive anvil. _Whenever I'm alone with you._ Oh.

Oh. Oh _no._

He closes his eyes slowly, painfully, and tips forward. This is _appalling_. He hits the desk with his face, and spends the next twenty or so minutes moaning, “no. No, no, noooo.”

He grabs his hair and tries to pull it over his face. Maybe if he hides, he thinks, this won't be happening. He won’t actually be listening to a goth rock love song while thinking about McClane, like those two things have anything to do with one another.

He doesn't know if McClane actually listens to the albums he sends, but he thinks, what if he does? What if he… And Matt turns bright red, hot and awkward in his chair.

 

Part 5

John McClane doesn't watch action movies. He stopped watching them after '88 and hasn’t gone back to them since.

He likes war documentaries though. Jack brings them, buys them from the internet or something, stacks of DVDs that go next to the stack of Matt's CDs. Veterans talking about no-anesthetic operations in the trenches to remove gangrened limbs - John could watch them for hours. Hours.

He gets to watch a lot of them, uninterrupted, when Matt doesn’t call for a while. He just doesn’t call. John didn’t sit down with a calendar to count the days or anything, so he doesn’t know how long it’s been. A while. John gets it. After that first time he pulled that hero shit, he needed to be alone for a while too.

They were talking on the phone pretty regularly though, which is why John notices. Matt’s always the one to call. John asks how his doll collection is going, and Matt gives John shit for being territorial about Lucy’s last name. Makes fun of John’s music choices.

They’ve gotten lunch a couple of times. And dinner, once. John never remembers exactly what they talk about over food, just that every once in a while he manages to make Matt laugh, giggle into his food until he spits out his mouthful of hamburger, and that’s something to look forward to.

Matt sends these CDs. He does it to "troll" John. Trolling is what the kids call it when they’re trying to get a rise out of each other, Lucy explains. She drops in on John in October, something about holiday shopping (in October?) and finds the CDs. She looks at the track listings and just starts laughing. John confesses to her that he hadn’t listened to them.

“What’s Matt mean, he’s trolling? He never goes anywhere near fish, Lucy, he barely leaves his apartment.”

Lucy laughs. “I think _you’re_ the fish in this scenario, Dad.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, you know.” She’s beaming at him now. “That’s what trolling is. It’s trying to annoy people into biting back.”

“I’m a _fish_?”

Lucy, by this point, is smiling so widely that John can’t help smiling back. She’s so pretty, John thinks. It makes him feel like he’s done something right, when she smiles like that.

“An annoyed fish, yeah,” she says, and hugs him.

John starts a mental list of songs he’d put on a CD, if he was ‘trolling’ Matt back. Marvin Gaye, maybe? _Aint’ No Mountain High Enough._ Damn good song.

He walks into a music store one day and what do you know, they’re selling records again. You can even buy turntables with USB thingies on them, the guy in the store explains. His name is Nolan and he nods like he understands when John says that digital remasters don’t seem right because they’re not how the songs _sound_ you know? He shows John that you can record songs from vinyl onto a computer, if you want, and he has green eyes and stutters a bit when John smiles at him.

John buys a turntable and smiles like an idiot all the way home. He hasn’t had one since the divorce. The old one was Holly’s and after he moved out… All his records were full of songs he listened to when he met Holly, when he fell for Holly, songs he’d danced to at his wedding with Holly. And those songs are still the same, but John isn’t, and Holly isn’t, and when the divorce was final it seemed strange to continue to listen to that music. Like pretending that the world still had salt in it when the truth was that it was bland. Maybe that’s the price of love.

He digs out most of his records when he gets home. They’re in dusty boxes in the basement, in no particular order. John opens one at random, feels lucky to pull Pet Sounds out of the first box he opens. _Sloop John B_. Damn good song.

He listens to the album all the way through, and then decides: fine, he’ll bite. He’ll be the kid’s annoyed fish. He’ll give his CDs a shot.

He picks up the one on top of the pile, the last one to come in the mail. All of the CDs are labelled “Music People Actually Listen To” with a number and a date. The artists, song titles, and release date all meticulously printed out in Matt’s neat little scrawl.

This one doesn’t sound like the first one John listened to; it doesn’t sound like the radio; it sounds exactly like Matt. Maybe John recognizes it from the music he listened to in the hospital, or maybe it’s the lyrics. Either way, John almost feels like Matt is in the room.

There's just something about Farrell that makes John feel like the two of them are - strangely, paradoxically - alone in the universe. Whenever he's near the kid John finds himself turning and finding him right there, inches away, looking up at John. John finds himself touching Matt without even meaning to, having him in his space without thinking about it first, and then realizing that he didn't mind. The truth is, John _likes it_ when Matt calls him a luddite. He likes it when Matt pulls tricks like the one with that car’s OnStar out of thin air. He likes it when Matt talks too much and stares up at John through his eyelashes, when he complains like he’s trying to get John to pull a face at him on purpose, and says what John would _swear_ are made-up words while gesturing towards a phone or a computer. Matt doesn’t mess with John, not when it matters, and he doesn’t think John needs to be fixed, and the truth is, John kind of _wishes_ Matt was in the room, right now.

 

Part 6

This is the problem with recovery, Matt thinks. There's no _goal_. Which should be a good thing, but it really isn't. You’re just supposed to sit. And recover.

He’s bored beyond the telling of it, and every day Matt reflexively picks up the phone to call McClane, like he did for months. But then he remembers and gets… Not embarrassed exactly? More, confused. A mix of shame, for not being more self-aware, and of confusion about... Protocol? Procedure? 

The thing is, no matter how muscly and tough McClane is, he somehow gives off this vibe like deep down, he’s considerate. When he’s with Lucy it comes out as overprotectiveness. And a weird problem with boundaries, Matt thinks. (What the fuck, McClane?) But when he’s with Matt it’s almost… chivalrous?

“Fucking fuck, Farrell, I knew it.” Warlock yells down the phone line. “I knew you were gonna... You incepted yourself into a crush on McClane, didn't you?"

“Stop making up words, asshole.” Matt shouts back, but he’s grinning at the phone as he does it. “The fuck is 'incepted’? You asked me what’s up with me, and I’m telling you, jackass. _You_ called me, remember?”

“You fucking know I’m not fucking calling to hear about your little pretend-crush that you turned into a real-crush the minute you said the words out loud!. And I am not making up words, Farrell, language is an ever-evolving tool and it’s not my job to make sure you keep up!”

“Oh _excuse me_ for having AFK experiences and opening up my mouth to talk about them, Mr I-Live-With-My-Mom.”

“Fuck you, Farrell.”

“And you, _Frederik_.”

Matt spends the rest of the week straddling the line between his rational perception of the world and wishful thinking, unsure whether he’s willing to risk the cold-water shower of finding out that his wishful thinking about McClane is wildly out of sync with the truth.

Most of the time, he wishes he could take a fucking amnesia pill. Because this is a fucking disaster. No matter how much of it is or isn’t… There’s something about hope, a terrible thing: every time you find out you were only deluding yourself, it hurts more than the time before.

He distracts himself. By the end of the second week _sans_ daily phone call with McClane, Matt has taught himself to cook three different kinds of pasta, he’s mostly finished weaning himself off painkillers, he’s walked a good half mile without crutches, and Warlock has sent him a “girly-ass fucking whiteboard” to work on. By “girly-ass” he means a whiteboard that came with markers in a dozen colours, including two shades of pink.

“Fuck your backwards-ass gender politics, Warlock.” Matt cheerfully tells him. “But um.” His voice drops to a mumble. “Thanks for the whiteboard, dude.”

“Yeah yeah yeah, just don’t design anything illegal with it.”

Matt hangs up, and it’s back to sitting and recovering. What is he supposed to do? What's even supposed to happen when you have feelings for That Guy? Are you just supposed to tell him? He can almost see himself doing that, he thinks. Blurting it all out. And maybe he would, if he thought he had nothing to lose.

He _want_ to tell him. He feels hijacked by his own feelings. And embarrassed about being, like, a stereotype or something. He wants it to stop. He's gone through this before, he's felt like this before and it's - really excruciating. The wanting, the uncertainty, the fucking helplessness.

He sits down and stares at the keyboard. Turns his head, stares at the whiteboard. Programming is one way to turn off his inner goddamn turmoil. Probably.

But his mind supplies a memory of McClane saying ‘hackboy’ and he knows this isn’t going to work. Instead he scrolls through reddit channels and tries to remember what he ever did to pass the time before this? Before whatever it was that’s happening now? He thinks about calling his ex - because yeah, Matthew Francis Farrell is exactly that kind of masochist - and tries to find the number for the hospital therapist instead. But then he doesn’t call because it’s four pm on a Sunday, and he’ll feel bad about interrupting someone’s weekend just because he has a goddamn crush. 

Matt limps his way to his massive couch - seriously, this apartment has the biggest couch on the East fucking Coast - and starts flipping through channels. He hits the porn channels, and thinks about watching, but then he doesn’t. Masturbation is totally unappealing right now for some reason.

He always used to jerk off on Sunday afternoons. Years ago. When Sunday afternoon meant an empty household. Parents at bridge club, maid’s day off, and from age fourteen onwards Nanny was gone. He’d been pretty tame about passing the time, at first - he listened to music as loud as the game room speakers allowed, made elaborate sandwiches so big he couldn’t fit them into his mouth, taught himself to dismantle appliances and then put it back together - but then things changed when he started taking extra credit courses.

It had started because his mother was such a competitive parent. She’d heard someone boast about their grandchild at bridge club or some crap, and gotten it into her head that Matt had to take college classes for extra credit. Like Matt wasn’t enough of a pathetic geek already. He wasn’t given the option to say no, he really wasn’t, but the good thing was that he was allowed to choose which classes to take.

He went with classical art history, because it seemed to bother his dad. He’d thought it would be boring - just looking at pictures of broken pottery, whatever - but wow, had he been wrong. His parents would probably never have allowed it if they’d had any idea of the kind of frank, unabridged discussions that went on in that class. Professor talking about representations of nudity, talking about same-sex relationships, like those things were _normal_.

And in a way, those classes changed his life, and not just because they jump-started his freaking teenage sexual awakening. They were about beauty. And form. And meaning. And they made Matt think about those things. The sculpted muscles and breasts - they were just a way to get there. 

So the images in his textbook - of nymphs and ephebes, athletes, dancers, warriors, and someone called Leda getting it on with a swan - they were like, _pure_ things, in class. Cultural things. Intellectual things.

Which made it seem like a little bit of a perversion when Matt pored over them on Sunday afternoons, and touched himself. Knees spread, shoving up against his hand, looking at the images of taut muscles and debauchery.

By the time high speed internet happened, Matt was gone from that house. Which meant that getting serious with his box of kleenex was an option any time of day or night. But there was still something special about the late afternoon sunlight on Sundays.

Sitting and recovering. Fuck. Matt gives the porn channels another try. Everybody on the channel is so… tan. With shiny hair. He wants - he’s not sure what he wants. Not this.

He turns the television off, closes his eyes, and tries to remember Greek sculpture. And those jars, with the paintings. Amphorae. Amphorae sometimes had some crazy shit going on. Illustrations of sex acts, crazy banquets. Athletic dudes with massive erections. “Fuck, yeah. Yeah.” Matt mutters, and shoves his hand in his sweatpants.

He’ll just - he’ll do this. He’ll go through the movements, climax. Maybe go to sleep after.

He pulls his pants down and pushes his hips up. Tries to be efficient about it. Tries to picture Ancient Greek dudes wrestling. In class Matt learned that they used to wrestle naked, in the Olympic games, which sounds like something a prurient art historian made up but apparently it isn’t. And they were oiled. Matt imagines the wrestlers, their hands grappling each other, one pushing the other down, grunting. Fuck. Fuck that sounds good. Soon Matt is making thrusting movements against his palm, gasping for air, moving faster and faster. Wrestlers probably - the oil probably made it easier to fuck, if they wanted, they could just spread a bit more oil down there and, oh, oh god, shove their cocks up one another. Wrestlers were probably pretty brutal though, probably, they wouldn’t be gentle about it, they would -

Just before he peaks, Matt has this image of McClane wrapping him up in his arms, pushing his dick into Matt and whispering “s’okay, Sweetheart, I got you.”

He comes with a jolt, all over his last clean t-shirt, and before he even cleans up he’s yelling, “FUCKING FUCK, MCCLANE.” He kicks the air in frustration. “FUCK! THIS IS THE WORST.” And he thinks, the truth is, this is all about the fact that he wishes McClane would do anything to protect him, not because McClane is _That Guy_ , but because...

In the morning, he wakes up from a dream in which McClane is standing next to him with his arm hovering just over the small of Matt’s back.

That’s it. That’s the whole dream.

 

Part 7

John knocks at the door, and when there's no answer, keeps knocking.

The door opens finally, after a couple minutes, and there’s Matt, standing on the other side, but he’s left the chain in. He has a pillow crease on the side of his face and he's only wearing sweatpants.

"Hi," John says, raising his eyebrow.

Matt doesn’t answer, just blinks like he might be hallucinating.

“Haven't heard from you for a while,” John says.

Matt looks down. “Yeah, well -"

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah.” He stares at his bare feet, poking out of the edges of his too-long sweatpants. “I’m fine“

“Farrell, I stopped believing people when they were lying to me back in 1977 and I’m not gonna start again now.”

“I just…“ He rubs his face instead of finishing the sentence. His hair flops over his hand.

"What's going on? Come on, kid, let me in.”

Matt suddenly looks angry. He takes a deep breath, starts, “you know -“

He looks like he’s gearing up for one of those big speeches, like they’re in a movie, and Matt is about to explain something important about success and failure and human nature, and about what he thought being a hero, what he thought being _That Guy_ was going to be like, and how this isn’t it.

But then he stops, wraps his arms around his pale torso, and his voice changes. He repeats, “you know." His voice is raw. He says the words slowly. "Don't you? You gotta know."

Something happens to John then, like that weird feeling he got that time Holly dragged him to the spa and they dunked him in a pool of cold water after sitting in the sauna. He waits as it rushes through him.

Then he says, “open the door."

“Shit.”

Matt screws his eyes shut, and then he closes the door. The chain jangles, and a second later Matt opens it again, but doesn't move. Doesn't invite John in.

"You're a detective, John." His voice cracks, he's clinging to the side of the door. He's saying it like he's pleading. He’s flushed bright red and distraught and half naked and is this really what John thinks it is?

"Why are you -” John wants to reach out, wants to tell him it’s okay, it’s okay.

"Don't you know?"

"Yeah," John growls, pushing the door open. "I know."

***

“I. Oh. Oh, you’re going to—okay,” Matt babbles.

He kisses Matt before he knows he’s going to do it. All this time, he’d been thinking of reasons not to, because it seemed like something he was supposed to fight against. When you want something this much, it’s probably not allowed.

He hadn’t known Matt would ever look at him like that, like every minute that John wasn’t kissing him was more painful than the one before. So when John rushes forwards, and hears the door close behind him, he kisses Matt blindly, clumsily, barely moving his face in the right direction and tremulously closing his eyes.

Matt surges towards him. When he moves his mouth against John’s, the sudden craving John feels is like a blow to the head. He’d forgotten. _He’d forgotten_. The incredible urgency, the simultaneous pull and relief, the overwhelming rush of being as close to someone as possible.

Matt puts his arms around John and asks, “is this really happening?” against John’s mouth.

John says “I missed you,” because somehow it seems like that's the answer to Matt's question. "I missed you, baby."

They’re breathing hard. Matt pants right into John’s mouth. He says, “more.”

If he’d ever let himself think about it, John would have imagined that Matt wanted sex for the same reason he wanted everything else: to show off his skills, and to be sarcastic. He would’ve pictured Matt, mocking him, having no idea what he was doing, pulling clever tricks out of nowhere. And maybe using those dolls to do unspeakable things (who knew what they were actually for?)

Instead, what happens is that Matt pushes him down onto a couch and climbs on top of him, eagerly pulls at John’s clothes, grinds against him, and moans. "McClane," he says. "McClane."

“Your knee -” John tries to push him off the couch. “Farrell, no, your knee.”

“It’s fine,” Matt breathes, as he opens up John’s fly. “I’m fine, I’m ok,” he says again, and he pulls John’s pants down, and John is disoriented, hit by a wave of immediacy, of a need to be together, to show Matt how much he cares about him, and how much he wants him, to provoke more of those sounds Matt is making.

“Ok.” John runs his hand over Matt’s knee. “Just tell me if -”

Matt runs his tongue over John’s lower lip before John can finish.

When he'll remember it later, John will wonder how things happened so quickly. But now it seems inevitable. Matt climbs off him, heads off somewhere before John can even realize what's going on. He returns and puts a packet in John’s hand. "Put that on," he says, and John turns the condom around to get a grip on it. When John looks up, Matt is holding a bottle in one hand while he does something obscene to himself with the other hand, and John’s never felt like this before. Matt is hot and flushed and beautiful. He is warm and mobile and smells like fresh-cut lawn. He grips John’s upper arms, asks “what are your shoulders made out of, rock?”

And then he’s sitting on top of John again, and lining John’s dick up and -

"Wait." John puts an arm up, stops him from moving. Forces himself to look Matt in the eye. “Farrell.”

“McClane.”

“I -“ John can’t make himself finish his sentence.

But something happens to Matt’s face, like he knows - “I - me too, McClane. Me - me too.”

Then Matt moves. Matt slowly, slowly presses down. John sees stars, and there’s a roaring in his ears and Matt starts babbling.

“Unnngh - you - you - McClane, ohh. JESUS FUCKING - Why haven’t we been doing this since the day we met?"

John spreads his hands over the dip in Matt’s lower back. _Fuck_.

Matt grinds down and keeps babbling. “Oh, fuck. I woulda - I woulda let you fuck me in that stupid smashed-up lowjacked Crown Vic, jesus. On the road between Camden and Washington. Right in the backseat. You could’ve…”

John runs his over Matt’s ass and helps him move, pulls him up and down, up and down, and he wants to thrust up, wants to get in deeper but he -

He hears himself whisper, “turn over.” His voice is barely audible, even to him, but he says it again, “c’mon, Farrell, turn over.”

Matt protests but John lifts him, gets him on all fours, and then gets on his knees behind him. And pushes in.

“Fuck!” Matt yelps. “Oh my god, this is really happening. you're so. You. Fuck you're - Fuck. This is happening. Sunrises, bubble baths, tiramisu, the smell of a new motherboard, nothing, nothing, _nothing_ compares to this.”

John’s never heard anything like this. He’s moving wildly, erratically now, and maybe it’s Matt’s babbling, or maybe he’s been wanting this more than he even knew, but he finds himself bending low over Matt, and whispering embarrassing things into his shoulder.

“Oh god,” Matt groans, and John feels him shuddering. Everything is so real that it hurts. A dizzy blur. Matt arches his back, shudders, climaxes, and John comes a moment later.

They crash into the couch.

When John catches his breath, he pulls out - Matt whines loudly but doesn’t move - and stands. He ties the condom off and throws it out, and finds the washroom to clean up. But he doesn’t get dressed. Instead, he finds his coat and fishes in the pockets for the thing that had brought him here in the first place.

“Hey.” John nudges Matt - still lying face down on the couch - in the shoulder until he looks up. His eyes are huge, hair plastered to his forehead, and John can’t help it, he crouches down, face level with Matt’s, and brushes his hair back. “Hey,” John says again.

“Hey,” Matt says.

John hands him a mixtape. “I was dropping by to give you this.”

*

Later, Matt shows John his pasta recipes, and they have some dinner. John tells Matt everything that happened in two weeks, and Matt tells John everything that’s happened in two weeks.

Then, John washes the dishes.

“I take back everything I’ve ever said on the topic in my entire life,” Matt tells him. He’s sitting on the counter. “ _This_ ,” he says, gesturing at John, and at the dishcloth John is holding, “This is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

John ignores him and sings along with his mixtape. It’s Dean Martin. _When the world seems to shine like you've had too much wine_ …

“Hey, John?”

“Matt?”

“You're staying here okay? Okay?"

"Yeah,” John says. “I’m staying here."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Charloween](http://archiveofourown.org/users/charloween) for beta, thoughts, cheerleading, more thoughts, and beta again. Thanks also for accepting my impassioned declaration of friendship as well as my neverending onslaught of screenshots of wee bb Bruce Willis in Moonlighting such as this one:
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: did Bruce Willis _really_ ever cover up his muscles with so many layers and layers of clothing?
> 
> Thanks to [missmollyetc](http://archiveofourown.org/users/missmollyetc) for characterization thoughts, and to [xen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/xenakis) and [dodificus](http://archiveofourown.org/users/dodificus) for read-throughs and suggestions.
> 
> Thanks to Margaret for medical/health care beta, and to [thedeadparrot](http://archiveofourown.org/users/thedeadparrot) for putting me in contact with Margaret.
> 
> Thanks to the [Internet Movie Car Database](http://imcdb.org/) (amazing) and the [Internet Movie Firearms Database](http://www.imfdb.org/) (epic).
> 
> Thanks to [dodificus](http://archiveofourown.org/users/dodificus) for inspiring me to work harder on the porn. I worked hard on it, Dodie. I worked _so hard_.
> 
> I stole Matt’s line, “I. Oh. Oh, you’re going to—okay,” from Persnickett’s [Coming Clean](http://archiveofourown.org/works/750513/chapters/1400894).
> 
> Thanks again to Char, for throwing the Snake River Conspiracy album at me, and providing all the best lines, particularly the one about the cat shelter, the one about pastel uniforms, and the one about Matt's angry cat defense of his doll collection. Thanks also for allowing me use a Twitter DM convo as framework for Matt and Warlock’s dialogue.
> 
> *
> 
> In the first draft of this fic, Matt was going to send John a _mixtape_ mixtape. Here is the track list:
> 
> Franz Ferdinand - Can't Stop Feeling  
> Garbage - You Look So Fine  
> Snake River Conspiracy - Love Song  
> Radiohead - All I Need  
> Placebo - Without You I'm Nothing  
> Arcade Fire - Wake Up
> 
> I basically wrote this thing listening to it on repeat.
> 
> *
> 
> And now: out-of-context-theatre!  
>  **emef** : _fruitlessly searches for a good way to say "and then John McClane internally screams OH MY GOD THIS IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING”*_  
>  **Charloween** : _the part of his brain that usually sorts out unrealistic sexual fantasies runs around to the other parts of his brain, asking for high-fives_?


End file.
